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Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

obsidian.md

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Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#141

Post by the_fury »

Macha wrote: post #123
rg111 wrote: post #58

I have switched to Obsidian and I use multiple vaults for multiple purposes. One is for work, one is for personal projects and notes. One for Books and Movies I watched or want to watch. And one for Zettelkasten[0]. Obsidian is extremely customizable and user-friendly. And to make things even better, which is a must for many people including me, it saves the files as .md in the local storage. You can even sync it amo…

The one thing I found weird when I looked into Zettelkasten is the focus on having relatively hard to read IDs as the primary part of the title. It could certainly help in the original use case of having to categorise and store physical paper notes, but it just feels obsolete in a world where you have digital notes, hyperlinking, and search.

I've found that to be exactly the case. Once you are able to freely hypelink your notes, the ID isn't really helpful. It's the first thing I dropped from mine.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#142

Post by senko »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #129

Quoted post unavailable.

> To represent lots of different information to humans in a concise view, you need a lot more than Markdown is capable of.

[•••]

> Better tools for composing documents already exist.

Such as? Honest question, and a hope you don't mean MS Word or Google Doc.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#143

Post by chiefalchemist »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #129

Quoted post unavailable.

Agreed. It's a form of jargon, which is effectively never a recommended (communications) tool. If it was the best-fit tool, sure then so be it. But too often the jargon tools are more about being elitist than anything else.

Or maybe I've been at this too long, and too naively still optimistic?

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#144

Post by capableweb »

dotancohen wrote: post #128
capableweb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always fun to see these original comments in a HN thread. If you write this on Twitter you can get hundreds of retweets, hurry before someone else writes the tweet! Jokes aside, Obsidian being a Electron application is not a issue. The app starts in under 3 seconds for me, barely uses any RAM and CPU usage remains stable and low. If you want to actually contribute anything to this thread, feel free to give feedback o…

> The app starts in under 3 seconds for me For me that would be a showstopper. 3 seconds to open my notes app? I would have already lost my train of thought. :wq

It takes me about 15 seconds to boot my computer. But do I need to start the computer each time I do something on it? No, I leave it on.

Similarly goes for other things you use but takes "too long time" to open, leave the thing open and you just have to switch windows to access it.

And if you think Obsidian is a note taking app, then yeah, it's not the right tool for you, continue using Vi/m. But once you grow out of it, you'll need a knowledge base instead, and for that, Obsidian is lightweight.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#145

Post by aazaa »

Odd that there's no video introduction. The first hit I found on Google had two ads and was a guy basically wandering around the app as if he had never used it before.

> Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.

This doesn't help me. I use a directory of Markdown files powered by VS Code to take notes already - ever since Evernote began getting bad, which was a long time ago.

What does Obsidian offer beyond that? I can't tell from the page. I'm not asking for an answer here. Instead I'm noting that the page itself doesn't answer the questions that I have as a current Markdown-notetaking user.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#147

Post by kepano »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #129

Quoted post unavailable.

One of my highest priorities for a personal knowledgebase is that my system can continue to be essentially unchanged for the rest of my life (hopefully another 50+ years), just as my current archive of notes goes back 20 years.

The Lindy Effect[0] would say that plain text files have already existed for more than 50 years, therefore are likely to still exist another 50 years from now.

That being said the Obsidian team are making progress towards adding WYSIWYG, so you will soon be able to edit visually while keeping the files stored in a readable plain text format.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#148

Post by conradludgate »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #129

Quoted post unavailable.

If you struggle with markdown and tables, get a rich text editor.

What file format do you suppose we should use instead? I don't want to have a heavy client just to render the contents

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#149

Post by hannasanarion »

Macha wrote: post #123
rg111 wrote: post #58

I have switched to Obsidian and I use multiple vaults for multiple purposes. One is for work, one is for personal projects and notes. One for Books and Movies I watched or want to watch. And one for Zettelkasten[0]. Obsidian is extremely customizable and user-friendly. And to make things even better, which is a must for many people including me, it saves the files as .md in the local storage. You can even sync it amo…

The one thing I found weird when I looked into Zettelkasten is the focus on having relatively hard to read IDs as the primary part of the title. It could certainly help in the original use case of having to categorise and store physical paper notes, but it just feels obsolete in a world where you have digital notes, hyperlinking, and search.

The funny ID thing was necessary when zettelkastens were physical cards in a box that you need to keep in order so that you can look them up. Digital zettelkasten apps have largely dropped the ID systems, you link cards just by their name, and you can use folders or internal headers for ordered structure when you want it.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#150

Post by hannasanarion »

stphnclysmth wrote: post #70
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> md = markdown Makes sense. Is (EDIT: the use of the TLD) .md a convention in the markdown community?

Yes. I have seen the .mdown extension also, but .md is the default in every editor I've used, and it's a default for readme files on Gitlab and GitHub.

We're talking about the website here, not the file format. .md is the top-level-domain for Moldova, Obsidian.md exists at that address by the good graces of the Moldovan government.
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